$33 and an urge to drive to Wausau.

It’s day three of Life Without the Artist. Saturday night we broke up. I’ve been doing the normal things I do after the relationship goes south – digging out all past Break Up CDs I make for catharsis, looking for new breakup songs, slowly telling people, responding with a nod to their “Boy you look like you’re doing ok,” noticing how much more cuddle time I give to the Min Pin (dogs are invaluable at times like these). Mostly missing him and hearing how everyone thought that there was something generally wrong with the relationship, but they’re still really sorry.

But most of all, I have an urge to drive 3 hours to Wausau. (Where?) Yeah, that’d be Wausau, WI, where my friend Trae lives. The thing is, Wausau isn’t 3 hours away anymore. It used to be, before I moved back to my hometown. Before, I could always depend on a three hour drive to clear myself of all the confusing feelings you feel after a break up – missing someone, not liking them all that much, REALLY liking them, fear, sadness, despondency, all those nice things. And then, just about the time my head would clear and that ache in my heart would leave, I’d be at the place where I knew I was truly loved and we’d get beer and really-bad-for-you-but-it-tastes-oh-so-good food and laugh about all the college times we had. Generally revel in the friendship that only “going home” (for both of us) could separate, but not break.

So, I’ve got $33 in my pocketbook. It occurred to me now that I’m practically rich this weekend (I get paid next week) and that whatever I would have done with the Artist now won’t drain my cash flow. (I really have an urge to go on a shopping spree, but $33 wouldn’t satisfy my kind of spree-ing.)

And I’ve got an urge to drive to Wausau. But I can’t, because driving 15 hours is too much. So you know what it meant to me to find an email from Hotwire.com the day after we broke up, before anyone knew we had, with this message:

Hi,

Trae has booked the following flight through Hotwire and asked us to forward the itinerary to you. Please note that flight times reflect the airports' local time zones.

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Trae has included this message: I'm on my way

Now I just need to wait 6 weeks.